User talk:MrJoshTheEpic
Welcome Hi, welcome to Creepypasta Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the How to Talk to the Devil page. Please be sure to check out all the Site Rules, as it is important to follow them. Failure to abide by them may result in your account being blocked. Read some new pastas by checking out or browse by topic by checking out the Genre Listing. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! SoPretentious (talk) 03:31, June 6, 2016 (UTC) EmpyrealInvective (talk) 03:35, June 6, 2016 (UTC) Re: Story There were quite a lot of issues here. Besides the spelling ("the realm of human knoledge (knowledge)"), capitalization (Devil is a proper noun as you're using the title. "just ask the devil.", "the devil does not escape from the mirror.", "You may ask the devil any question that you want", "the devil will drag your soul.", etc. As you are referring to Hell as a specific place, it also requires capitalization. "he returns to hell", " as he returns to hell.", etc.), punctuation (quotations and punctuation missing from dialogue. "incantation: (")Invocabo magna daemonium eiceret de visceribus terrae(.") Once"), wording ("One more thing, if you remove your blindfold at anytime during the ritual other than you're supposed to, then you will see the devil, and his horrifying sight will give you a heart attack, killing you instantly, and the devil will drag your soul down with him as he returns to hell." Besides being an overly complex sentence it is awkwardly wording.), there are also quite a lot of story issues here. First and foremost, the ritual is very generic. It involves all the typical items used in a ritual (like candles, a mirror, etc) and really doesn't do anything to feel interesting. This feels like a majority of the idea was lifted off of other ritual stories (more on that later). Feel free to look over other ritual stories to understand why this comes off as cookie-cutter. Additionally there isn't a lot of description or anything to involve the audience. Take this line for example: "It's not much, but it is important if you don't want to die in the most horrible ways imaginable and unimaginable" which you later contradict with " if you remove your blindfold at anytime during the ritual other than you're supposed to, then you will see the devil, and his horrifying sight will give you a heart attack, killing you instantly, and the devil will drag your soul down with him as he returns to hell.". How exactly does dying in an unimaginable way equate to a simple heart attack? The story also needs to be broken up. A typical paragraph is five-ten sentences. Any more and the story feel blocky and unwieldy and any less and it feels like you're padding out the format to make it appear larger than it is. The first two paragraphs are both three sentences long and it really tends to give the story a rushed/lacking description feel. The final paragraph it 13 or so sentences long and it feels bulky. It seems like the latter portion was rushed through as there are a lot of errors there and very little description/build-up to performing the ritual. Finally, this feels like a really watered-down version of The Devil Game. First off look at the premise of both stories and they're almost identical. Then look at the items required for the Devil Game ritual: A full can of salt. Seven candles, red or white being preferable. Something to light the candles with. A full-length floor or wall mirror." The largest issue is focus. Look how much time is devoted to building up the dangerousness of the ritual and the duplicity of the Devil. Your story in comparison feels extremely anemic and really doesn't make good use of its premise. I would suggest taking your next story to the writer's workshop as you have overlooked a lot of issues that resulted in the story being below our quality standards. EmpyrealInvective (talk) 04:22, June 6, 2016 (UTC) EmpyrealInvective (talk) 05:38, June 6, 2016 (UTC) Re: Story (Again) It was deleted because it was an incredibly generic premise with very little payoff to the reward and almost no build-up to the ritual. It basically boils down to dialing a number and speaking to someone like you were placing an order. There's no real sense of story or tension here. The twist at the end is extremely telegraphed ("And belive (sic) me, you'll know when it's paid! We can't tell you what it will be though, that would ruin the suprise. (sic)" and really weakens the story. Who exactly is going to perform this ritual with the certainty that they'll likely die ("We're demons, we don't need your silly money. We prefer death.") and don't know the full effects of their actions? You also gloss over pretty large parts of the story. "One of our representatives will arrive soon to discuss the terms of your wish." Leaving it at that without any physical description or explanation of events that will likely happen after the representative arrives feels lazy. I'm sorry, but this comes off like a story you rushed through to put up and didn't really bother to spend anytime fleshing out the concept or making it interesting. The frequent spelling errors also don't help much. "If you wished for an object, then you will receive (sic) it immediately", "that would ruin the suprise. (sic)", "And belive (sic) me, you'll know when it's paid!", etc. I suggest taking time and proof-reading your stories as this one has a lot of similar issues that were present in your other one. EmpyrealInvective (talk) 05:55, June 6, 2016 (UTC) EmpyrealInvective (talk) 06:12, June 6, 2016 (UTC) EmpyrealInvective (talk) 06:12, June 6, 2016 (UTC) Re: Story I'm sorry, but it's obvious that you're now rushing through these stories and spending little to no time on them. This one is also not up to quality standards. Besides the typical spelling errors present in all your stories ("to see him occasionally (sic) his last day"), you add capitalization (""Um... Hello, who are you?" He (he) asked", ""alright (Alright), let'sssss get him back into the sssim."", etc.), and punctuation errors to the list ("Hey, you(punctuation missing)" "subject has learned about experiment(.) commence (Commence) taking!"" Randomly inserting quotation marks. "our research continues." (quotation marks not needed) "Not that you need to know any of that," the creature said", "saying(,) "alright, let'sssss get him back into the sssim.", etc.) On top of that, there are a lot of story issues here. Story issues: Starting with the sibilant hissing, what's the point of it? You explain that gravity removed the necessity for them to have legs, how does gravity impact their tendency to hiss on the letter s. Not only that, but they randomly alternate between this quirk and not doing it. "Luckily, my comrades and I had the brains to survive it all and even save a few others, yourself included. We've been running tesssstssss on the dumber onessss in order to undersssstand pssssychology better." Story issues cont.: It really feels like you didn't read over any of the story. "we are an elite group of ssssuper evolved humanssss" and "the lower power GravSssssim caused us to devolve into the legless slithering beasts you see before you" are in direct conflict with each other. "I was sent here to monitor subject a3X27-b: Poleman, Tristan." and "ERROR: Unauthorized lifeform detected, subject has learned about experiment commence taking!"" is another example. Why would Tristan be an unauthorized subject when he's the one they're studying? These contradictions all take place within a few sentences of each other and really highlight your lack of focus here. Story issues final: There's a lot of unnecessary exposition here. "I was sent here to monitor subject a3X27-b: Poleman, Tristan." The fact this robot randomly keeps revealing the fact that this is a simulation to Tristan feels completely unnecessary. As does the snake man's monologue where he contradicts himself multiple times. This makes the story feel very rushed and not planned out effectively. Best of luck to you in the future. I hope you decide to spend more time on your stories as you really get out what you put into them. EmpyrealInvective (talk) 16:22, June 6, 2016 (UTC)